Biden in Baghdad

What could go wrong? He's "not interfering" but he's also ensuring the Sunnis and Shiites get along for the next election. Seriously, what is Joe Biden doing there? Lowering the bar for democracy so the Iraqis don't feel too badly about their elected leaders? I think the White House instructed him to just go there and "shoot the breeze" to appear productive. The conversation probably went something like this:



In fact, if you think of Joe Biden as an extended Fred Willard sketch, it makes a lot more sense. Don't see the similarities?







The grande finale:

War is never the answer

That's the message of Nicholson Baker's book, Smoke, which lays the blame for World War II on Winston Churchill, Roosevelt and the Chinese (they drove the Japanese to violence), among others.

Does Baker really believe that? Or is he using World War II as a stand in for Iraq? In a riposte to an unfavorable review in the NY Sun, Baker argues:

Nobody expects a man like Adolf Hitler to do the right thing — he was a rage-prone, vengeful, suicidal madman. I do think, though, that we might legitimately and fruitfully question, as Herbert Hoover did at the time, the good sense and compassion of two of the leaders whom we now hold up as saviors of civilization.

Whatever you may believe about the advisability of the Battle of Iraq, surely you will concede that it isn't perverse to try to wring from the catastrophe of World War II some balm of moderating wisdom and instruction.

The writer of the Sun's response has it right.

On the eve of American entry into the Battle of Iraq, Nicholson Baker was one of those Slate magazine queried in respect of where they stood. Wrote Mr. Baker: "We can keep it from happening. What slowed the bombing in Vietnam? The shouts of the protesters in front of the White House, disturbing Nixon's tranquility. Public embarrassment stopped it. Heap shame and opprobrium on Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Powell, and Bush. They are foolish, small-minded, cowardly men who will not hesitate to order the bombing of civilians from several miles in the air in order to squash a dictator that they helped bring to power." We are mere newspapermen, not psychoanalysts. But our guess is that Mr. Baker knew when he wrote those words that Bush and Cheney had seized the esprit of Churchill and Roosevelt and that one way to get at them would be to tarnish the heroes of the earlier war.

Smoke is reviewed here, here and here.

Like a man he died

If you read nothing else today, or all week, read this.

Via Instapundit.

Hollywood and the war

Andrew Breitbart and David Ehrenstein are doing a point/counterpoint thing at the LA Times. In Part 1, they tackle upcoming war flicks. In Part 2, they tackle Hollywood's role as opinion maker.

Breitbart proposes (facetiously?) a very unconservative state-funded campaign to promote political diversity.

Let's promote the "diversity education" notion that has made American higher education the gold standard around the world. But instead of race, gender and sexuality as the dominant precepts, our creative coaltion will focus on differing ideas -- left, center AND right. Think of that "fairness doctrine" some of your allies have been bandying about.

Fair?

It won't be about "identity" politics; it will be about American politics. It will be a publicly funded national artistic reunification project -- like something FDR would've implemented -- where Tim Robbins and his common-law wife will actually get to hear the other side. Maybe she'll even take off her shirt like she does in all her movies. But this time it will be for America!

Sounds like a recipe for very bad films.

Ehrenstein says Hollywood was never any good at propaganda, anyway, and then brings up two films by the same director, the first of which was pro-Soviet and the second of which was anti-Soviet.

Let's jump into the Wayback Machine and return to the early 1940s, when the Soviet Union was America's ally (yes, you read that right), and Hollywood was devoted to creating fanciful melodramas of its brave efforts to counter the Nazi menace. One of them was "Days of Glory" (1944), directed by Jacques Tourneur, and starring prima ballerina Tamara Toumanova and (in his motion picture debut) Gregory Peck. The script by Melchior Lengyel (a Hungarian emigre who co-scripted "To Be or Not to Be" and "Ninotchka" for Ernst Lubitsch) and Casey Robinson (a veteran screenwriter whose most famous titles are "Now, Voyager" and "Kings Row") is a fairly standard action-and-romance presenting Russian villagers as really nice people who don't deserve to be attacked by Hitler's armies. Nothing teribly special about it, other than Peck's obvious star potential.

As you might expect, a film like this looked a lot different by the war's end, when the U.S.-Soviet alliance was not only over but being treated as if it never happened, to judge from testimony given by numerous stars and studio chiefs before the House Un-American Activities Committee. This decidedly Orwellian turn of events (sorry, but no other word applies) was made complete by the 1950s with the "Cold War" in full swing. By 1958, "Days of Glory" director Jacques Tourneur could be found at the helm of "The Fearmakers" -- a bizarre little number in which Dana Andrews undoes a plot by evil commies Mel Torme and Veda Ann Borg to create biased opinion polls, the better to influence the media and elections. Interestingly enough, the script was based on an anti-Nazi World War II era novel by Darwin L. Teilhet. With a tap of the typewriter Nazis became commies thanks to scripters Chris Appley (this remains his sole credit to date) and TV veteran Elliot West -- whose works include "Airwolf" and "Lou Grant," starring noted lefty Edward Asner. Yes, Hollywood makes strange bedfellows.

This has nothing to do with anything, except perhaps to illustrate that Hollywood was sensitive to (or perhaps agreed with) the majority of Americans who welcomed Soviet help during World War II but didn't much like the Soviets in 1958, a mere two years after Soviet tanks rolled into Hungary. As Lord Palmerston observed: “Nations have no permanent friends or allies, they only have permanent interests.”

There is a tendency among conservatives to unfavorably compare World War II-era movies to the movies of today. But the world has changed since 1945. Aside from the fact that World War II received almost unanimous support from the American people--which is hardly the case now--most everyone in the country was affected in some way by the war. Most people knew someone serving overseas. And the people left at home were rationing gas, recycling tinfoil, painting seams on their legs to give the illusion of stockings and working in defense plants. Now millions of us don't know any servicemen or women. And we certainly aren't rationing anything.

Still, it's alarming that not one of this fall's so-called war films can be considered pro-war--or even any that are war-neutral. Most of these movies don't even, as the left is wont to say, support the troops since the troops depicted are likely depicted as murderous rapists.

I'm not saying that filmmakers shouldn't make a movie about a murderous raping soldier, but how about a movie about a guy serving in Iraq who's not a murderous rapist? He doesn't have to be a saint, either. Just a normal guy. Or gal. Or how about a movie about a battle in Iraq or Afghanistan, real or fictional, that doesn't even discuss the war's rightness or wrongness?

I favor the big lie theory

Interesting discussion at Chicago Boyz about the theory that we invaded Iraq as retaliation for 9/11.

I wrote earlier about the fairly widespread erroneous belief that the Bush administration advocated the invasion/liberation of Iraq due to the mistaken belief that Saddam Hussein was somehow involved in the 9/11 attacks.

As a sociological phenomenon, this error fascinates me. The liberation and democratization of Iraq is the major political event of our times, yet we see that a significant minority of lay people and cognoscenti alike honestly do not understand the rather clearly stated rationales for attempting it. Why do so many people make such an important decision based on an erroneous premise and what does this say about the overall quality of our general political decision making?

[Note: I am not talking about the debate over whether Saddam did or did not support, direct or coordinate with Al-Qaeda prior to 9/11. Instead. I am talking about the perception that the Bush administration and other major advocates of the liberation based their case on the claim that he did. We will likely never resolve the first issue but we can easily verify the second.]

I think the error arises from a very basic fault in human perception. Put simply, the brain perceives new information based on what it already knows and expects to perceive. If we hear or see a new pattern that looks similar to a long-known pattern, we mistake the new pattern for the old. We see what we expect to see, we hear what we expect to hear.

The retaliation theory was, to my knowledge, never an issue until after the war was well underway. It was never given as a reason to invade Iraq by proponents of the war before we invaded, but was offered instead by the war's opponents after the war began in order to be shot down. To wit: "Bush claimed that Saddam was behind 9/11 and that's a lie. There has never been any evidence that Saddam was behind 9/11."

The 9/11 retaliation meme is of a piece with the earlier meme "Bush lied, people died" that began after no WMD were found in Iraq. Of course, Bush was only repeating what intelligence sources, our own and other countries', told him. That everyone believed that Saddam had WMD and that Saddam had actively sought WMD and that Saddam had used WMD against his own people when he gassed the Kurds in the 1980s was glossed over. What mattered was that they never found WMD so WMD never existed. Bush invented WMD. This gave members of Congress who voted for the war cover; they could now claim that they had been lied to.

As for the 9/11 retaliation theory, it's possible that people cottoned on to it because of confusion over Bush's Axis of Evil speech in which he cited Iraq, Iran and North Korea as rogue states that sponsored terrorism. But I don't think so.

I think the 9/11 retaliation theory is of relatively recent vintage. At some point within the last year or so the WMD meme was discarded--when was the last time you heard that?--in favor of the 9/11 meme by antiwar activists. Perhaps because the Joseph Wilson/Valerie Plame brouhaha failed to inflame the public.

Another pointless gotcha exercise

General David Petraeus says he "doesn't know" if the war in Iraq makes us safer. And all hell breaks loose among the usual suspects.

He's fighting a war that he hasn't even decided is vital or even beneficial to the security of the United States. That's how lost we are in mission creep. That's the depth of the hole in which Petraeus has been ordered to keep digging.

I'm glad the general doesn't know if the Iraq war makes us safer. It's not his business to know such things; Petraeus' job is prosecuting the war in Iraq. And shame on Senator Warner for demagoguing the issue.

McQ has more.

Via memeorandum.

'No time to quit'

One of a series of ads being put out by Freedoms Watch in the run up to a vote on the war in Iraq.

Via Don Surber.

Too good to check?

Michael Goldfarb wonders about a recent (subscription req'd) piece in The New Republic written by a pseudonymous soldier serving in Iraq.

It recounts several instances of gross misconduct by the men in his unit, some of which are, to echo the title of his piece, deeply shocking--If they are true--a big if, according to several people with experience in Iraq. One described it to me as sounding like a "pastiche of the 'This is no bullshit . . . stories soldiers like to tell."

The first episode puts "Thomas"'s unit at a "chow hall" at an unnamed base. A woman eating there is wearing "an unrecognizable tan uniform, so I couldn’t really tell whether she was a soldier or a civilian contractor." The woman's face is described as having been "more or less melted, along with all the hair on that side of her head," by an IED. She sits down for lunch next to the men. Here's how "Thomas" describes what happens next:

We were already halfway through our meals when she arrived. After a minute or two of eating in silence, one of my friends stabbed his spoon violently into his pile of mashed potatoes and left it there.
“Man, I can’t eat like this,” he said.
“Like what?” I said. “Chow hall food getting to you?”
“No—with that fucking freak behind us!” he exclaimed, loud enough for not only her to hear us, but everyone at the surrounding tables. I looked over at the woman, and she was intently staring into each forkful of food before it entered her half-melted mouth.
“Are you kidding? I think she’s fucking hot!” I blurted out.
“What?” said my friend, half-smiling.
“Yeah man,” I continued. “I love chicks that have been intimate—with IEDs. It really turns me on—melted skin, missing limbs, plastic noses . . . .”
“You’re crazy, man!” my friend said, doubling over with laughter. I took it as my cue to continue.
“In fact, I was thinking of getting some girls together and doing a photo shoot. Maybe for a calendar? ‘IED Babes.’ We could have them pose in thongs and bikinis on top of the hoods of their blown-up vehicles.”
My friend was practically falling out of his chair laughing. The disfigured woman slammed her cup down and ran out of the chow hall, her half-finished tray of food nearly falling to the ground.

Read the whole thing. Goldfarb asks milbloggers to look into the allegations. Does the story smell funny to you? It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Via John Podhoretz.

Citizen soldiers

Hundreds of military personnel sworn in as citizens in Iraq on July 4th.

Near the front of the hall, Pfc. Mark Ayson, with a black brace on one wrist and an M-4 rifle slung across his back, had tears in his eyes.

Ayson, 26, of Pensacola, Fla., was born in the Philippines and immigrated to the U.S. with his family when he was 8. Less than a week before the ceremony, he was riding in a Humvee that was hit by a copper-plated explosive in the north Baghdad neighborhood of Adhamiya. A fellow soldier lost a his leg in the attack, but Ayson escaped with damaged eardrums, shrapnel in his right leg and a bruised left wrist. He was back to work within 72 hours.

Ayson said the experience underlines why he joined the Army, came to Iraq nearly a year ago and became a citizen on Wednesday.

"We're fighting for a cause," he said.

Journalistic priorities

The death toll beats out successes in Iraq. Not really news, but I just thought I'd mention it.

A message to the troops

Long, but full of good stuff, from this guy, whom I'd never hear of before.

Via Bryan.

I guess Iran did win

The US helped free an Iranian diplomat detained by the Iraqis.

Pentagon and White House spokesmen on Tuesday and Wednesday insisted publicly that the release of Mr. Sharafi was solely an Iraqi decision. Indeed, when Mr. Sharafi was kidnapped in February, Pentagon spokesman said that his abduction was not the work of any members of multi-national forces in Iraq. The Iranians, through diplomatic channels, formally accused America of having ordered the abduction.

The administration official yesterday said that Mr. Sharafi's capture was not ordered by American forces, but he was interrogated in a facility overseen by both Iraqi and American commanders.

"Had this guy been in Iraqi custody, we all know he would have been in Iran weeks ago," an Iraqi diplomat said yesterday on condition of anonymity.

'Worth it and workable'

INDC Bill sums up his experience in Iraq. RTWT. Via Robert.

Blessed be America

Via The Jawa Report, by way of Conservative Grapevine.

Iraq and the passive voice

Christopher Hitchens:

[T]here is the unspoken assumption that what the United States does in Iraq is a fully determined action, whereas what other people do is simply a consequence of that action, with no independent or autonomous "agency" of its own. This mentality was perfectly expressed, under the byline of Marc Santora, in the New York Times of Jan. 31. Santora explained the background of the murderous attacks on the Shiite festival of Ashura: "At Ashura, Shiites commemorate what is for them the most formative event of their faith, a celebration that had been banned under Saddam Hussein. In recent years, Sunni militants, caught up in a renewed sectarian split, have attacked worshippers on the holiday."

Yes, civil war sectarian violence was foisted on the Iraqis.

Seven outs

Mickey Kaus asks "What if the surge works?" He sees seven outs for Senators voting for the anti-surge resolution.

1) 'I wanted more troops than the 21,500!' I strongly believe we shouldn't risk troops unless we have an overwhelming force advantage;' 2) 'We were trying to get the attention of this president, to change course. I didn't agree with all the provisions in the resolution.' Oh wait. Hillary's already said that. 3) I just wanted the president to consider all options and alternatives;' 4) Under my alternative plan, we could have acheived the same result without putting that many extra American soldiers at risk (e.g., 'We could have done the job with 20,500 troops!'); 5) Gen. Petraeus is a genius; he took a flawed policy and somehow made it work; 6) 'The plan they actually implemented wasn't the plan we condemned--in the wake of the resolution, I think you'll see they modified the plan, which made it work much better; 7) 'The resolution itself was what scared the Iraqi government and made the plan work, so I actually take some credit for its success.' ...

In other words, the resolution is a completely empty gesture. Pointless pageantry.

You mean we weren't before?

Troops authorized to kill Iranian operatives in Iraq.

For more than a year, U.S. forces in Iraq have secretly detained dozens of suspected Iranian agents, holding them for three to four days at a time. The "catch and release" policy was designed to avoid escalating tensions with Iran and yet intimidate its emissaries. U.S. forces collected DNA samples from some of the Iranians without their knowledge, subjected others to retina scans, and fingerprinted and photographed all of them before letting them go.

Here I thought we were bringing the war on terror to the terrorists. Silly me.

The NSRC pledge

I signed. Will you?

If the United States Senate passes a resolution, non-binding or otherwise, that criticizes the commitment of additional troops to Iraq that General Petraeus has asked for and that the president has pledged, and if the Senate does so after the testimony of General Petraeus on January 23 that such a resolution will be an encouragement to the enemy, I will not contribute to any Republican senator who voted for the resolution. Further, if any Republican senator who votes for such a resolution is a candidate for re-election in 2008, I will not contribute to the National Republican Senatorial Committee unless the Chairman of that Committee, Senator Ensign, commits in writing that none of the funds of the NRSC will go to support the re-election of any senator supporting the non-binding resolution.

More here.

I actually like the President's health care proposal

Jules Crittendon: The Speech George Bush Should Make Tuesday Night.

The disaster is that you, Congress and the American people, do not care to fight.

Faced with a fundamental challenge to our own security, to everything we believe in, to the world order to peace and security for which we and our parents fought so hard for so many years, you now want to pretend like none of these threats are real. You want to surrender to the evil I have been telling you about. An evil that, unchecked, can consume large parts of the world and threatens to usher in a dark age.

You didn’t like it when I talked about evil. Sounded too simple, too uncompromising, too moralistic. Too … biblical.

I don’t know what else you call people who fly passenger jets into office buildings; who rape women in front of their husbands and children, and execute their opponents in acid baths; who seek to spread tyrannical and archaic religious regimes that enslave women and stifle fundamental freedoms. Who want to dominate the world’s primary oil fields with nuclear weapons.

I call it evil. Works for me.

Sigh.

Anyone else feeling a sense of impending doom about Iraq?

You got a better idea?

Max Boot on the surge.

If everything goes right, large swathes of Baghdad could gradually be brought under control. Then American and Iraqi units could pursue a "spreading inkblot" strategy — another classic counterinsurgency concept — to increase the pacified zone outward.

Of course that's a big if. It may be that we still don't have enough troops to successfully carry out this strategy. It may be that we don't have the will to see it through. It may be that we don't have enough reliable Iraqi partners. But considering the massive investment we have already made in Iraq, and the lack of good alternatives, it seems worth one final effort to see if we can salvage something from this dire situation.